We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.
Tom Robbins
Oh, how that quote speaks to me!
I remember, many years ago, I was sitting in a lecture or session during a seminar. Friends and I had organised an evening with a successful writer and couples therapist. I don’t remember the topic, but it had something to do with LOVE.
We had dinner together and gathered to listen to her afterwards. In order to get us engaged and talking, she was asking all kinds of different question. Whether there’s love at first sight and how we’d describe falling in love.
She also asked why we thought many people had trouble finding love and a partner. It was quite interesting to hear what people thought and felt. She then moved on to describe falling in love or meeting your Miss Perfect and McDreamy as fireworks and roller-coasters.
The person who was sitting next to me also happened to be the person I was dating at the time had stated his view before and when I raised my hand to speak, she asked me to speak. But before I could start, she wanted to know whether I was seeing the person next to me. When I said yes, she only commented: “Well, this is going be interesting.”
What I said then is still my opinion today. We have this idea of love at first sight and falling in love that is mostly constructed by Hollywood as the likes. Of course there can be excitement when you first meet someone and butterflies in one’s stomach and all, but that will not always be the case. And most importantly, it won’t stay that way all the time.
I find that we grow up with ideas of what love is supposed to be like and as we grow older we look just for that. Look at the fairytales we enjoyed as kids. The brave prince, the helpless princess. They meet at a ball and he forgets what she looks like. Or she is sleeping and is woken up by his kiss. Even better, she is resurrected by his kiss. I could go on.
As we grow older and watch movie, it doesn’t get better. Or read books like Romeo and Juliet – my dislike of that story could be a long blog post by itself.
I belive that we have an unrealistic and unreal idea of love. There’s not just one only love out there. There might even be more than one love at the same time. Everyone experiences love in a different way and that’s OK.
But most importantly: Love is Work
Being in love is not enough. It’s the beginning, the foundation maybe. But staying in love and together takes work, commitment and a lot of taking and discussing. I don’t believe that there’s a perfect lover out there and not a “perfect love”. But I strongly believe that we are able to create the perfect love. Each one for themselves and the people involved.
See all the other wonderful posts about love:
See who else is getting a #JanuaryJumpstart:
I’m not sure about perfect love. But the fact that you need to work on relationships is for sure.